Mythological Background
Helen, daughter of Tyndareus and Leda, was the most beautiful woman in Greece. When she came of age, many suitors from all parts of Greece wanted to marry her. In order to keep them from going to war against one another, Tyndareus made Helen’s suitors swear an oath: not to make war on the suitor Tyndareus chose for Helen’s husband, and always to come to the aid of Helen’s husband in time of need. Once all the suitors took the oath, Tyndareus gave Helen in marriage to Menelaus, the king of Sparta.
Some years later, Paris, son of King Priam of Troy, came to Sparta. Paris either seduced or kidnapped Helen (different myths tell different versions0, and brought her to Troy. Menelaus reminded Helen’s former suitors of their oath to her father, and called on them to sail with him to Troy to recover Helen. In preparation for the war, the Greek armies assembled a fleet at the city of Aulis.
But the goddess Artemis was angry at the Greeks and refused to let the winds blow that would bring their ships to Troy. The Greeks learned that Artemis would not let the winds blow until Iphigeneia, oldest daughter of the Greek leader, King Agamemnon (who was brother to Menelaus), was sacrificed to her. Agamemnon sent a letter to his wife Clytemnestra, in which he falsely told her to bring Iphigeneia to Aulis so that the girl could marry the Greek hero Achilles.
Queen Clytemnestra brought Iphigeneia to Aulis, where she learned what the Greeks had actually planned to do. Achilles had not been told the truth about the plan to sacrifice the girl, so he tried to help the queen to save her daughter. In the end, Iphigeneia decided to let herself be sacrificed so that the Greeks could sail to Troy.
Notes
In lines 1375-1402, Iphigeneia explains her decision. Her sacrifice will allow the Greeks to make war on Troy to right the wrong that the Trojans have done by taking Helen.
About the Author
There is little reliable evidence about the life of Euripides, and nearly nothing from his lifetime. Most ancient sources about his life say that he was born in the year when Athens won the Battle of Salamis, 480 BCE. He presented his first tragedies in 455, and won his first victory in a drama competition in 441. He won only four victories in drama competitions during his career as a playwright. Contemporary comic playwrights (Aristophanes and others) parodied and ridiculed his work more than they did the work of any other Athenian literary figure. This suggests that, although Euripides may not have won often, people paid attention to his work. We know he died before January of 405, because Aristophanes’ comedy, The Frogs, which refers to Euripides’ death, was staged in that month and year.
Evidence about Euripides’ activity as a tragedian is reliable: for the dramatic contests each year, an inscription in stone recorded the contestants’ names, their plays, and any prizes they won. The inscriptions were copied, most notably by Aristotle and his students, then later by the Alexandrian scholars. The Alexandrians also collected copies of as many plays as they could find, compiling them into collections later used by medieval copyists. Alexandrian scholars apparently had copies of 78 plays by Euripides, 70 tragedies and 8 satyr plays, and knew titles for 14 more plays. 19 of these plays survive; one play attributed to him the Rhesus, may not be his work. At least two non-dramatic poems are ascribed to Euripides: a victory ode (now fragmentary) in honor of Alcibiades’ victories in the 416 BCE Olympic Games’ chariot races, and an epitaph in honor of the Athenians who died in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War.
Evidence from Aristotle’s reference to a lawsuit in which Euripides was involved indicates that the poet was fairly well-off in terms of wealth – not surprising in that he had enough time available to him to be able to write plays without any guarantee of financial success from them.
A remark attributed to Euripides’ fellow writer of tragedies, Sophocles, reflects the difference between Sophocles’ work and Euripides’: Sophocles is said to have claimed that he showed people as they ought to be (or ought to be shown), whereas Euripides showed them as they really were. Euripides treated the old myths, his source materials for his plots, as if they were stories about real everyday people. Often in his plays he depicts his characters at their crisis moments, revealing their weaknesses.
A recurrent element in Euripides’ dramas is a sense of defeat and disappointment, possibly reflecting Euripides’ own feelings at the reception of his plays. He tended to focus on the weak and oppressed, the despised and misunderstood members of society: usually women, slaves, captives, strangers, and (to Greek eyes) barbarians (i.e., non-Greeks). Thus, another recurrent motif in Euripides is that of a character’s desire to escape his/ her situation. Euripides had his faults in constructing tragedies: scenes of pathos sometimes turn into scenes of sentimentality; his plays show signs of hasty or sloppy composition; and he sometimes attempted to get too much into a single character or situation. Faulty as his plays might be, however, his characters are unforgettable.
Although various reasons are given for Euripides’ decision to go to Macedon in 408 BCE, it is a guess as to which reason – his wife’s infidelity, his annoyance at having to compete against inferior poets, disdain for failing to win first prize in dramatic contests – is the true one. It should be noted that other Athenian poets and artists also accepted invitations from Archelaus, the archon of Macedon, at around the time Euripides went there. Whether Euripides was going into self-imposed exile, or intended to make only a temporary visit, is unknown. In any event, he died in Macedon. The funerary inscription on the cenotaph erected to him in Athens states that he was buried in Macedon.
Source
Euripides. Euripides I: Iphigeneia at Aulis, Rhesus, Hecuba, Daughters of Troy, Helen. Transl. A.S. Way. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.
Image: Bust of Euripides. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek original from ca. 330 BC, Museo Pio-Clementino, Sala delle Muse, Vatican. Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen (2009) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Euripides_Pio-Clementino_Inv302_n2.jpg